In Canada as I understand it, Drug advertising is not allowed.
In the US though, where it is legal, a HUGE portion of thier outlays is toward advertising. If I Recall Correctly, it's a portion either as large as R&d, or R&D and profit combined. Not to mention at least 40% of Drug R&D is done at publicly funded universities.
Drug Companies advertise for the same reason anyone else does, advertising generally brings in more revenue, than the cost of the advertising, therefor higher profit.
I am a capitalist and bigtime free trader, and I have absolute disdain for marketing and advertising, as is done today. More often than not, advertising and market try to get people to buy things they don't need. Granted the roots are to make potential customers aware of the product, so should they need or want it, they know it exists. But now that such a role has mostly been filled, they sell cars to people who have cars, drugs to people who are on drugs, TVs to people who have TVs, and clothes to people who have clothes.
The market has been saturated so effectively by capitalist mechanism, with all the things people really need and most of what they want, that the only thing left to do, is sell them more of what they already have, or make use of planned obsolescence.
it's for this reason that car parts change on the same vehicle from year to year, with no real aesthic, performance, or comfort improvement, and the only standardized part on all cars is the tire's valve stem.
The is plenty of money to be made by selling the people what they need and want, there is still more to be made from selling them more of what they have. If you watch carefully what commercials sell, it's almost always something you already have anyway, as do most, if not all people. But things people may need: Corn, bread, simple clothes, running water, etc. those things don't get advertised so much, because people already buy them, without being informed by flashy, scantly-clad spokepersons. There really is so little that's advertised, that a person can do without Just about everything you see in a comercial, you can never buy, and still be just as happy. Or at least, never buy the advertised version of it.
